“We’re excited by the community’s response to the WebM project, and we support efforts to standardize the technology,” Google said in a statement.

Updated 10:28 p.m. PDTwith Google comment.

Perhaps not the most ringing endorsement of standardization, but with the W3C’s Philippe Le Hegaret pointing out in the same article that “[t]o be seriously considered by the W3C HTML Working Group, the specification would need to go through a standards group”, it must have been increasingly difficult to remain silent (or hope to arm-twist Android partners into shouldering the patent risk).

Le Hegaret’s full statement points to potential responsible next steps on the standardization path:

“WebM/VP8 has the potential of providing a solution for the baseline video format of HTML5. To be seriously considered by the W3C HTML Working Group, the specification would need to go through a standards group and be developed under RF [royalty-free] licensing participation terms,” Philippe Le Hegaret, leader of Web video work at the W3C, said in a statement. “W3C remains interested in having a video format for HTML5 that is compatible with the W3C Royalty-Free Patent Policy.”